


Empty Bottles in the Rain

by backtohogwarts



Category: Scandal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Family, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-09
Updated: 2015-11-21
Packaged: 2018-04-30 19:27:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5176898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/backtohogwarts/pseuds/backtohogwarts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Gerry Grant is dead." Liv says, not allowing the idea that suggests otherwise to take root, "Besides, the Army took this place apart when it was decamped. I think they'd have noticed if the President's dead son was down there." </p><p>It cannot really be him. It just can't be. …Can it? </p><p>A complete rewrite of season four.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Traumatic

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: fic title from "heal" by tom odell. I don't own anything you recognize, Scandal is (unfortunately) the property of Shonda Rhimes and ABC.

Huck does not put much stock in the bible. He never really has, and he doubts that he ever shall after the things that he's done, seen and been through throughout the course of his life. He doesn't believe Jesus of Nazareth was anything more than a mortal man – a good man, a great one that much is true – but only a mere man nonetheless. He doesn't believe that Jesus turned water into wine, or that he fed five thousand people with a loaf of bread and five fish – because if he can or could do that but now sits idle on a cloud watching as millions starve down on Earth, he is not a God at all but rather a monster claiming credit for his Father's work.

That being said, there are some wise parables told within the pages of the bible that he can't help but find interesting, a few he finds to be accurate and occasionally even one or two he deems applicable to his own life. The bible speaks often of fire: Hebrews 12:29 says _for our God is a consuming fire._ Of the hell he knows he shall encounter in the afterlife if such a thing does in fact exist, Revelation 21:8 teaches that _but as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolators, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death._ Exodus 19:18, however, one of the few verses that has so thoroughly captured Huck's attention, states; _now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke because the Lord had descended on it in fire. The smoke of it went up like the smoke of a kiln, and the whole mountain trembled greatly._

That verse had stuck with him so intently, inspired him so deeply, that it counts for a great deal of the reasoning behind the way he'd chosen to spend this otherwise most normal of Thursday evenings. He is, in point of fact, planning to descend some fire of his own – literal fire, in this instance. He walks the unforgivable halls of Wonderland, abandoned by all who existed here and were both unmade and created here, carrying a bag that gets lighter and lighter as he goes. He walks from room to room with twofold purpose. The first is to check that every individual room is definitely empty, that no teenagers have broken in here on a dare or looking to party, that no homeless people have sought refuge inside the abandoned buildings, and he does this because he doesn't want anyone to get hurt – because the reason for his excursion here tonight, and the reason his bag is getting steadily lighter, is that he is in the process of burning the place down. He brought with him a duffel bag filled with cans of gasoline, and a small lockbox filled with explosives. Each room is doused with accelerant whilst the C4 is placed sparingly, strategically, to make sure that the whole place is completely and entirely decimated as opposed to just a burnt out shell, rebuildable if you know where to look.

He is going to descend fire upon the home of B6-13, sending a column of smoke climbing into the sky and wherever Rowan is in the world, he the mountain is going to tremble without understanding why.

He is more or less done by the time he reaches the lowest sub-basement in the building – the room which houses The Hole. He's been both dreading this part and eagerly awaiting it, truth be told. On one hand, he can't wait to be done; to draw a path in gasoline from the building to a safe distance and then to light a match, but on the other hand he feels sick and jumpy and afraid at just the thought of walking back into that room knowing what he'd endured in there previously. He makes himself do it though, because he needs this. B6-13 may have been dismantled by the President in his forthright anger with Rowan and Tom and their ilk and his all consuming grief for his dearly departed son, but personally Huck needs to cleanse the Earth of it's presence entirely. It will be good for him, he hopes, and for Quinn too, and anyone else who's still wrestling with their soul over the things that went on inside these walls.

Huck sets down the duffel on the floor to his right, and the lockbox on the floor to his left, and kneels down at the trapdoor covering the mouth of The Hole. It's a lot like the way he imagines it might feel to kneel at your own headstone. He died down there, once. Years ago – almost ten years ago, now, he was thrown into this hole and came out as someone else. Burning it will be a lot like giving his old self a much needed and long overdue funeral. He takes a deep breath, curls his hand around the handle in the door, and throws it open. The room is immediately filled with the disgusting stench he'd always associated with the place; sweat, vomit, blood, human excrement and death. He doesn't look at first; afraid of what he will see if he tries to look into the abyss and of what might look back, but he makes himself, finally – and promptly throws himself back across the floor with a gasp of knee-jerk panic.

Sprawled on the floor five feet away, heart pounding and palms beginning to sweat, he holds himself still for a moment. _Do not do this to yourself,_ he thinks firmly, trying to take deep breaths as best he can, _you did not just see what you think you saw. There is no one down here. There is not. Do not do this to yourself, Huck. Go back over there, look down, and see that you **did not just see what you think you saw.** You did not._

He doesn't bother trying to stand up, he's not sure his legs would hold him, and the absolute last thing he needs right now is to wind up tripping over his momentarily coltish feet and falling into The Hole. He would, without an ounce of hyperbole, he would quite literally die, and that is not what he came here for tonight. Instead, he pulls himself onto all fours, and forces himself to crawl across the cold dusty concrete until he can see into The Hole below.

He makes a pained noise when he realizes he was wrong before. He is not doing this to himself. He definitely did see exactly what he thought he did. There is a person at the bottom of that hole. _There is a human being down there_. "Hey!" He says, voice coming out both panicked and pained, "Hey, hello! Say something, please! Hello?"

The person doesn't respond, and Huck wonders if he's dead. He doesn't look old enough to be an agent – if he is Rowan must have started recruiting right out of high school because the kid looks like a teenager. "HEY!" Huck shouts, his own voice thrown back at him by the echo, "I am about to set this place on fire so if you are not dead I need you to show me a sign that you can hear me."

There is still no response, and Huck leans a little closer in an attempt to get a better look – and is filled with a sense of confusion when he realizes that surrounding the boy is supplies – food, water, a blanket… _what the fuck?_

He glances back at the floor and sweeps his hand across it in the direction of the mouth of The Hole, sending dust and dirt and a few tiny stones of concrete rushing down inside, and the person at the bottom flinches slightly.

Holy shit.

There is a live person at the bottom of The Hole – a live, possibly underage person being kept down there, and kept deliberately alive at that.

Huck hasn't the faintest idea how to go about trying to get him out, or if he is even safe to be around, but all he knows for sure is that he can't leave this kid down there to be burned alive by his plan for biblical vengeance.

He takes out his phone and dials Quinn. He wants to call Olivia, indeed every instinct in his body is telling him to, but he also doesn't want to subject her to the twofold horror of returning to Wonderland whilst also forcing her to look at someone in a similar situation to the one she not long ago escaped from herself.

* * *

 

"Are you awake?" Liv whispers against Fitz' bare back, "I have a confession to make."

"That sounds ominous." Fitz answers, his voice a little groggy where he was close to sleep, but he rolls onto his back anyway, opens his arm to her, and she moves forwards to rest her head on his shoulder, cuddling in close to his warm body.

"Okay," She says slowly without looking at him, and curiosity and concern rise in him in equal measure. "I-" She stops, and takes a deep breath, and he holds still where his hand had momentarily begun brushing up and down her back. "I can't make jam." She blurts finally, "I can't cook, at all, actually. I burn _pasta-"_

"Liv, wait," Fitz interrupts, trying his absolute hardest not to laugh, "That's your big confession? That you can't make jam?"

"Or cook in any capacity whatsoever." She reaffirms, making sure that he understands.

"O-kay…" He says slowly, like, _and…?_

"I'm not-" She stops again. "I'm not housewife material. I'm not going to magically become one when all this is over and we're living in Vermont, I'm not going to quit my job and turn into someone I'm not just because we're married."

"Livvie, I would never ask you to do that." He answers, cupping his free hand around her face gently.

"You didn't ask Mellie to, but she still did." Liv points out, "And you have this whole idea of our life planned out where you go off to work and I sit at home cooking and cleaning and if that's really what you want, you need to tell me right now because-"

"I can't really be the mayor."

"Fitz-"

"Hold on, Liv, just- just listen to me for a second."

She falls silent and waits expectantly (and a touch apprehensively, truth be told) for him to continue.

"I can't really be the mayor of Burlington, and you can't really make jam. That version of Vermont is a fantasy, and I don't want a fantasy with you. I want a reality, a life." He tells her, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear, "I want to wake up with you in the morning and complain when you drag me out of bed to go for a run with you. I want sex in the shower when we get home." He teases and she laughs warmly, ducking her head to kiss his shoulder before he continues, holding her a little closer, "I want to make breakfast for us and Karen and Teddy and whoever else comes along. I want to do the school run whilst you go upstairs to your office and work on fixing the world the way only Olivia Pope truly can. I want to see you sat in the bleachers at the kids' soccer matches waving at me coaching from the sidelines. I want family dinners and vacations and fights about who's turn it is to do the laundry or get up with the baby at three o'clock in the morning."

Liv doesn't even know where to start. This man. This incredible man, _her_ incredible man… he amazes her. Really and truly he does, but rather than say that she teases with a smile and borderline watery eyes, "Are you saying you want to be _my_ housewife?"

He laughs, fingertips skimming up and down her back once again, "I've been the primary wage earner for twenty five years and the sole wage earner for almost the same length of time." He answers, "I wouldn't mind a few years of being a kept man."

She laughs this time, shifting a little closer, "So you'll stay home and cook and clean whilst I bring home the bacon?"

"You could run for mayor." He suggests, laughing, though she could if she wanted to (they both know she doesn't, she's always been more at home directing the narrative than _being_ the narrative), "You could be the Mayor and _I_ could make jam."

Liv laughs, feeling better for finally having this most overdue of conversations, before stretching up just far enough that she can fit their lips together. Though this kiss is as passionate as any they share, this one isn't edged with their frequent sense of panic, of desperation, of needing to make every last second of their time together count before one or both of them has to rush off and save the world someplace else. This kiss is warm, and loving, and _welcome home_ and _I love you._

The ringing of the phone interrupts them, and Liv reaches over to the bedside cabinet and hangs up the call without bothering to check and see who it is. Fitz rolls them over slowly, putting Liv on her back beneath him, and her knees rise to bracket his hips. The phone rings again, and Liv sighs, pulling away from the kiss.

She reaches out for the handset and he catches her hand, "Ignore it," He implores her, leaning down to plant kisses on her neck, and she almost, _almost_ gives in.

"I can't," Liv tells him, arching under his mouth, "Two calls, one after the other, at two thirty in the morning… it's probably an emergency."

Fitz leans back suddenly, a vague look of alarm on his face, and Liv snatches the phone from its cradle on the last ring. "Olivia Pope."

"Liv, it's Quinn. I'm sorry to call you so late but… we have kind of a… _situation_ on our hands." She says, and Liv can hear worry and uncertainty edging the woman's voice – not something she often hears from her these days.

"What kind of situation?" Liv asks her, brow knitting at Quinn's tone.

"I don't mean to be rude but are you with the President right now?" Quinn asks, her voice a little hesitant, and Liv pauses out of sheer surprise.

"Excuse me?"

"I'm sorry, I know I- I'm sorry, normally I wouldn't ask but the President absolutely cannot hear about this until we're sure one way or the other." Quinn half-explains, and Liv moves to sit up. Fitz moves over and sits beside her in bed. She steals the top sheet and wraps it around herself as she stands up, finding herself worried that Fitz will hear Quinn just out of sheer proximity to the handset.

"Quinn. _What_ is going on?"

"I can't explain it to you on the phone, but I need you to come to Wonderland."

Every muscle in her body freezes, and she just barely resists the urge to hang up the phone on the spot. "Not a chance, Quinn."

"I understand why you don't want to, believe me, I do, but Liv this is- you need to get here. Now, or ten minutes ago, preferably."

"What the hell are _you_ doing there?" Liv demands, and she can feel Fitz' gaze following her as she shifts restlessly, wanting to pace but limited by the phone cord.

"Huck called me." Quinn answers, "Just get here, please – and like I said, if the President is with you… you might want to consider amending your whole honesty is the cardinal rule thing for a bit. Seriously."

Liv contemplates refusing, but she can hear the seriousness in Quinn's voice, and she sighs, her eyes shuttering closed. "I'll be there as soon as I can." She answers finally, "I'll call you when I'm almost with you." She hangs up the phone and doesn't look at Fitz as she turns away from him and heads for her closet.

"What's wrong, what's going on?" He asks her, and she sees him pull on his boxers and a T-shirt out of the corner of her eye, "Where are you going at this time of night?"

"I'm not sure yet." Liv answers honestly (to the first part of the question, at least), pulling on black slacks and an off white silk scoop neck shirt, all without looking at him – until she feels his arms wind around her waist, that is.

She stops her movements immediately, and feels him press a kiss to the back of her head. "When you- when you said it might be an emergency and I looked at the time… this isn't- it's not about Karen, is it?" He asks her, and she turns around in his arms.

"No," She tells him immediately before belatedly realizing, _you don't actually know that for sure – in fact, given that Quinn had insisted on Fitz being kept in the dark—_ "Not as far as I know." She amends, "I'll call you as soon as I know what's going on."

"What do you mean _not as far as you know_?" He asks, "Livvie-"

"Okay, hold on." She says quickly, stepping out of his arms and picking up the phone again. She dials out to Karen's school, puts the phone on speaker and the handset back down, and when the secretary answers Liv says, "This is Olivia Pope calling on behalf of President Grant, he just wants to check on Karen and make sure she's okay."

"Of course, Ma'am," The woman answers the same way she always does when Liv calls like this – and it's happened fairly frequently of late, "Give me one second, I'll send out her dormitory manager to check on her." A tinny version of a classical piece of music plays from the speaker whilst they wait on hold, and Liv finds her stomach is in knots of fear – what if she's wrong? What if Quinn's call _did_ have something to do with Fitz' daughter? What if she isn't there but it has nothing to do with this? What if—

"Karen's dorm manager has radio'd back to say that everything is fine, does the President wish to speak with his daughter?" The secretary asks, "Because we can wake her up if he does."

Liv looks across the room at Fitz questioningly, but he shakes his head, relief clear on his face. "No, that's okay." Liv answers her, "Thank you."

She hangs up the phone with one hand and puts on her watch with the other. "It might turn out to be nothing." She tells him, crossing the room to her closet to take out her suit jacket and pull it on. "You should go back to bed."

"I won't be able to sleep," He comments as she steps back into his space. "Call me when you know what's going on?" He requests, and she hesitates.

"I might not be able to tell you, you know that." She reminds him, and he shakes his head.

"I know, I just- I need to know that you're safe."

It's still a huge adjustment, making a real go of their relationship without Mellie there to use as a roadblock when she gets scared, or not reacting badly to him wanting updates on her safety – she has to remind herself sometimes that that's all it is. He's not demanding that she call him because he wants her attention and doesn't like it when someone else has it, he's asking that she call him because the only word that can be used to describe the last eight months or so is _traumatic_. Gerry's death, her almost leaving for Barbados with Jake but changing her mind at the last second, Harrison's murder, Mellie walking out on her family and leaving Fitz to deal with Karen's grief and Teddy's confusion by himself, Liv's abduction that would've forced him to go to war to save her (because he would have, had it come to that) had Huck and Quinn not found her at the last second… he'd been an inch and one more piece of bad news away from a nervous breakdown when she'd got back, and she can't say she blames him.

There had been few silver linings in the whole series of situations, but there had at least been some – namely; the long overdue dismantling of B6-13, the re-affirmation of their relationship in a new and more serious way, the borderline compassionate acceptance of Fitz and Mellie's official separation by the public and the party thanks to the fact that no one can really judge them for it given that it isn't uncommon for couples' relationships to fall apart following the loss of a child, plus Gerry's murder and Liv's abduction had opened his eyes to the extent of the corruption within the White House, and he'd finally begun the long and occasionally dangerous process of cleaning house.

The first thing he'd done was enlist OPA to find and vet highly qualified – and highly trustworthy – teams of agents (none of whom were found in the secret service, all pulled from other branches of the military and private security, and all secretly and unapologetically put through ThornGate level background checks before they were even interviewed) to serve as the replacement personal security details for Karen, Teddy, Olivia and lastly himself. Though Liv had been predictably reluctant at the idea of having an official security detail, the Joint Chiefs had been adamant. It was too much of a risk to have her walking around unprotected given her level of access, and she'd been officially outvoted.

"I will be. I'll take Daniel and Martha with me. I'll be fine and… and I'll call you." She says, her small smile not as fake as it once might have been at the prospect of a personal detail. She leans up to kiss him, and he doesn't want to let go of her when they stop.

* * *

 

"Are you sure this is the right place, Ma'am?" Daniel asks uncertainly, looking out of the windshield at the clearly abandoned building sprawled out in front of them.

"I'm sure." Liv answers, her tone made brusque by the bad memories snapping at her heels. She opens the door without waiting for them and climbs out, striding ahead. They jump up and out to follow her, throwing one another a glance. They don't like this one bit, but they have learnt that trying to stop Olivia when she's really on a mission is often a thankless and, frankly, useless task.

She dials Quinn as she walks, Martha remaining behind her whilst Daniel steps in front and to the right so as to protect from attacks to the front without obstructing her path. "I'm here, where are you?" She asks.

"Come into the main building, walk all the way down the long corridor in the middle and I'll meet you at the stairs." Quinn tells her, and Liv can hear footsteps echoing off the walls wherever she is.

They end the call and Liv relays the instructions to her agents, who nod without looking at her. They look everywhere but, eyes roving over their surroundings as if expecting to be attacked from all sides at any second. The President is not going to be happy when he hears about this even if they do make it back without any problems.

The door to the stairwell opens up ahead, and Daniel stops her with an arm thrown across her path in front of her, hand automatically reaching for his weapon. Quinn steps out and he relaxes his protective stance. "We're down here." She says, holding the door open in an invitation for them to follow her back downstairs. "I don't think the cavalry should join us, though."

Liv stops walking, looking at Quinn questioningly before throwing her detail a glance. "Give us a second." She says, stepping back out of the stairwell and waiting for Quinn to join her. She closes the door between them before the agents can protest. " _What_ is going on?" Liv repeats her question from earlier.

"We're not sure yet, you need to remember that when I tell you." Quinn answers her, "We could be wrong, this could be some kind of twisted hoax." Liv throws her an _enough stalling, start talking_ look, and Quinn explains, all in one run on sentence, "Huck came here to set this place on fire and found someone in The Hole and we're not sure but we're pretty sure that it's Gerry Grant."

"Gerry Grant is dead." Liv says, not allowing the idea to take root, "Besides, the Army took this place apart when it was decamped. I think they'd have noticed if the President's dead son was down there."

"Whether or not it really is him… there's still a kid down there. We need to get him out, and I think – just to be on the safe side – we're best off doing it without the secret service watching over our shoulders." Quinn points out, and Liv can barely hear her. She can't get her head around the words _we're pretty sure it's Gerry Grant._ Is it possible? It can't be. He died. The whole world watched in horror as he collapsed on stage, looked on with a global outpouring of grief as the sixteen year old was lain to rest and the Grant's marriage fell apart publically and permanently. It cannot really be him. It just can't be. …Can it?


	2. AB Negative

After Liv leaves, Fitz tries to go back to sleep. He tosses and turns, wrapped in sheets that smell like her, and them, but his brain is worrying; loudly.

Nobody calls a crisis manager in the middle of the night for legal advice. Something bad has happened, and where most people run in the opposite direction when that happens, Liv's job (and his, too, occasionally-slash-often) requires that she do the exact opposite of that. This isn't the first time that this has happened, far from it in fact, and he knows that it almost certainly won't be the last, but he can't just stop himself from worrying about her. He understands that it's her job to hear her clients say _jump_ and respond _how high_ , and he knows that her job and her business are incredibly important to her, and he knows that he would never, ever ask her to give that up just because it's keeping him up at night. But sometimes… sometimes he really wants to. Times like, for instance, tonight.

Although, he has to admit, he probably only feels this way because he'd gotten used to her working less – she's only just now getting back into working the kind of schedule she used to have. She'd slowed things down, using Abby as a proxy multiple times so that she could focus on things a little closer to home.

When he and Mellie had finally officially separated for good a little less than six months ago, Liv had been right there with him. He knows that she and Karen talk on the phone all the time, sometimes daily, and Karen now comes home from school for at least two weekends a month, more if her homework schedule allows – something she hasn't done since they were living in California. He's watched her earn Teddy's trust and slowly coax him out of his shell, happy to spend time with him when Fitz knows he's not going to be out of the office in time to put him to bed, and he's reasonably sure that Liv is Teddy's favorite person on the planet after his sister, given how happy he always seems to see her. Truth be told, he's been amazed at how, in such a relatively short space of time, they've become this steady little family unit – something that neither Fitz nor Olivia had at his children's age or have had since then, either.

He sometimes wonders if they are, at least in part, living a little vicariously through the lives they're trying to give Karen and Teddy now. Sensing that sleep is going to remain elusive for the immediate future, he gets out of bed and pulls on the sweatpants he'd left on the chair in the corner of her room. Whilst he wanders through her apartment, he wonders – not for the first time – if giving his children the childhood he and Liv had dreamed of at their age is really such a sensible (and realistic) goal. The world is a different place today than it was when they were growing up, and Karen and Teddy are not them.

But life is a complicated thing. So are love affairs and families and friendships and partnerships and all relationships – and nothing proves that more than Fitz and Olivia. Fitz, who doesn't even know how to untangle his relationship with his late Father, and who will never understand how his parents relationship began never mind how it lasted as long as it did, and Olivia who… well. Olivia who's past is like something out of the darkest Jerry Springer episode ever made. One of the only souvenirs that she has from her childhood is a VHS tape that lives on her bookshelf between _Pride and Prejudice_ and _1984_ – a video of her and her parents sat around a dining room table with a birthday cake in front of her covered with eight candles, happy and laughing and painfully _normal._

He found her watching it one night a few months ago, sat on the edge of her seat on the couch, crying her eyes out. He can't imagine what this has been like for her – he always knew that his Father was evil, perhaps not to the degree to which he turned out to be, but evil nonetheless. Olivia knew only that her Father was distant; neglectful and unkind, perhaps, but the true depths of his cruelty were hidden from her, only to be exposed years later all at once and in the most unfathomably terrible fashion.

His chest clenches at the thought of what Rowan had done to prove it to her, at the thought of running backstage with his son's lifeless body in his arms… he drops the tape onto her coffee table and walks away from it; down the hall back to her bedroom. He leaves his clothes in a pile on the end of the bed and heads into her en suite, hoping that a hot shower might help him to get some sleep.

He steps out of the shower twenty minutes later and immediately checks his phone to make sure that he hasn't missed a call from her, but sighs with frustration when he realizes that he hasn't. She hasn't tried to call him, or even text him, not once. His gaze flicks to the clock on her nightstand – it's going on four AM – how could he still not have heard from her?

_She has a detail_ , he reminds himself, _they will cut down anything that so much as looks like a threat before it gets close enough to share air with her. She's okay, she's going to be okay, stop it._

He grabs his phone and dials her number, unsure why tonight feels different – it feels like there's a reason to be worried, though he couldn't tell you what it is if you asked – and the line rings and rings and rings with no answer. When the line cuts itself off because it's been ringing too long, he drops the phone to the bed beside him. _You're being paranoid. She has a detail. Calm. Down._

His eyes go to his phone again, still and silent on the bed beside him, and then to the clock, again. _04:05._ He sighs deeply and falls back against her bed, running one hand over his face. _Easier said than done._

* * *

 

The clock hits five thirty in the morning, and the phone rings again, the one containing only one number, and Liv watches it ring and ring and ring without answering it. She hates to do it, really she does, but she also really, _really_ doesn't want to lie to Fitz about something so huge. If she answers the phone to him, he will hear in her voice that something is going on, and this isn't the kind of conversation that you can have over the phone.

"You might need to answer that." Huck says, and Liv turns quickly to look at him. "We tested the boy's blood and he's AB Negative. Unless you know Ge- _his_ blood type, you're going to have to ask his Father." He corrects himself at the last second so as not to risk having any of the few people milling around in the same corridor overhear their conversation.

"How did you do it so fast?" Liv asks in lieu of answering his earlier question. She can't think of any way she could ask Fitz something like that without letting him know that something is definitely going on.

"Quinn did it the high school way. Pricked his finger, broke into one of the labs while I kept watch."

Liv nods, barely paying attention. "Can you hack it?" She asks.

"The President's son's medical file?" Huck asks her skeptically, his voice dropping until it's barely audible.

"You've hacked worse." Liv points out, dropping her own voice to match his, "I really don't want to ask him if I don't have to, not yet, not when we're not sure."

Huck looks at her searchingly, not understanding. "You know it's him." He says, "I saw it on your face the second you saw him."

"He died." Liv whispers harshly, "He was buried, there was a funeral. It's just- it's not possible."

"Then how do you explain what's going on?" Huck asks, "I'll find a way do the DNA test for you, Liv, but I'm telling you, we need to start working on a plan to get him out of here. It won't be long before someone recognizes him, and if his Father finds out about this on TMZ instead of from you…" He trails off, and Liv has to acknowledge there's definitely some truth to that. Genuinely Gerry or not, the boy in the examination room across the hall from where they're sitting right now bares an uncanny resemblance to Fitz' Gerry, and it wouldn't be impossible for someone to get suspicious.

"Get me his blood type. ABNeg is rare, if it's a match, I'll call him." Liv bargains, and Huck nods, standing up. "He still hasn't said anything?"

"As far as I know he hasn't said a word." Huck confirms, and Liv sighs, leaning back in her seat as Huck heads off to go in search of an unoccupied computer.

It feels like hours before Huck returns, and she spends the whole time while she waits watching through the glass window in the door as the boy who is maybe not, but in truth almost certainly is, Gerry Grant lies motionless on the bed. He's hooked up to all the same machines Fitz' was after he was shot and he's so pale he's almost grey with it. _How could this be possible?_ She wonders to herself, _Gerry died. He was buried. He was **gone**. _ When Huck does return perhaps fifteen minutes later, he doesn't say anything. He just nods his head, and Liv feels all the air spill out of her lungs in one go.

The blood type is a match. It's not DNA confirmation, but given that he's a visual match to the boy she remembers and only 1% of white males in the United States have the blood type AB Negative… a DNA test is only going to tell her for sure what all the evidence is piling up to say on it's own. Gerry Grant is alive, and has spent the last eight months at the bottom of The Hole beneath B6-13. She's half convinced this has to be some kind of dream as she dials the phone linked only to Fitz.

"Go and brief Daniel and Martha on his imminent arrival." Liv tells Huck, standing up and glancing up and down the corridor as he nods and goes. The two agents who make up her secret service detail are standing on sentry duty at the end of the corridor and just outside the double doors separating it from the rest of the hospital respectively, and there's only three or four other people down here. She walks to the door behind which Gerry lies, and the phone rings only twice before he answers it.

"Livvie? Are you alright?"

"I- I don't know how to answer that." She tells him honestly, her forehead tipping to rest against the cold glass.

"Why, what's going on?" He asks, audibly concerned.

She takes a deep breath, "I need you to do something for me."

"Name it." He answers immediately, just wanting to know what's going on.

"First I need you to promise me that you won't ask me any questions yet." She tells him, "I don't have answers for you right now."

"Liv- no deal." He says, somewhere between exasperated and stern. She doesn't say anything, just waits silently to figure out what she's supposed to say, do- God, how is she going to do this?

"I will explain everything." She tells him, "I promise you that, but right now I just- I just need you to say, _Yes, Olivia, I'm on my way, Olivia_ , without asking any questions at all, or jumping to conclusions, okay, can you do that?"

She hears him sigh in frustration on the other end of the line. "Yes, Olivia, I'm on my way, _Olivia._ " He echoes back to her, emphasizing her full name to show his complete disagreement with this plan.

"Thank you." She tells him, breathing an internal sigh of relief, "I'm at James Madison."

"What, why?" He asks immediately, "What happened, are you okay?"

"Fitz…" She sighs, squeezing her eyes shut, "You promised."

"Just-" He stops, and she can imagine him gritting his teeth in frustration, "Just tell me you're okay."

"I'm okay." She promises him, "I just need you to get here as fast as you can without tipping anyone off. Daniel and Martha are handling things with the hospital so that everything is ready for you to arrive."

"I'm still at your apartment so I can be with you in ten minutes." He tells her, voice made short out of stress and sheer frustration at being in the dark with her once again – an echo of the way they used to handle everything in the name of plausible deniability.

* * *

 

Liv looks up when she hears fast walking footsteps on the floor. Fitz is striding towards her flanked by an agent on either side, striding towards her with purpose; his _don't fuck with me_ walk and a displeased set to his face. She stands up and walks towards him far enough that he's not accidentally going to see into the hospital room where almost-certainly Gerry lies, still conscious but still mute before she can read him in first.

"I'm sorry." She tells him as he pulls her into his arms the second they're close enough.

"What on Earth is going on, Liv?" He asks her, "Talk to me."

"The call I received earlier was from Quinn." She begins, reminding herself not to hold her breath, "She asked me to go to Wonderland to meet her and Huck." She starts, and she can see in his face that he's one hundred per cent not happy about her having gone there, and she sets her hands on his chest almost as if to placate him preemptively. "When I got there she told me that they'd found someone, a boy; a live boy being kept prisoner in The Hole, only he'd been left with supplies – food, water, a blanket. They took me down there and-" She pauses, her heart pounding in her chest as she tries to force her voice not to shake, "Fitz… it was Gerry."

He stares at her without saying a word, shock and disbelief and grief warring on his face. "That's not… It- no." He shakes his head jerkily, before forcing out, "That's not possible."

"I didn't believe it at first, even though I- I recognized him the second I saw him." She can feel her eyes filling with tears and she blinks them furiously away.

"That's not possible." He breathes, repeating himself and struggling to get oxygen into his lungs.

"We don't have DNA confirmation back yet, but his blood type is a match." Liv tells him gently, glancing briefly towards his room, "He's in there."

"He's alive?" Fitz asks, his voice barely making a sound.

"It looks that way." She answers, deliberately keeping her voice soft – out of concern for Fitz rather than who might hear them. Other than possibly his agents, no one will, the whole floor has been shut down to civilians by now. She takes a step backwards, expecting him to follow her but he doesn't move, like he's rooted to the ground. "Come on." She tells him gently, holding out her hand for him to take.

He's looking at her the way he only ever does when he's heartbroken; the same way he'd looked at her when he'd left her apartment for the first time, the same way he'd looked at her when, during his second election, she'd told him _there is no clean, just like there is no Vermont_. She steps up towards him slowly, gently fitting her palm over his cheek. "I wanted to wait until we had the DNA confirmation but I realized I was going to have to ask you for something of his to do that, and I didn't want to keep you in the dark any longer."

"What if it's not him?" He whispers through a clenched jaw, staring over her head and feeling his eyes burn with tears he's determined not to let fall, "What if- what if I get my hopes up and this is just one of Rowan's cruel tricks?" She doesn't have an answer for that. She wraps her arms around his shoulders and he moves, finally, to wrap his arms around her waist in return. "I'm going to die." He tells her, voice made meek out of sheer terror, "If it turns out not to be him- I can't lose him again, I won't survive it, Liv."

She can't tell whether he means figuratively or… otherwise, and she turns her head to the side to kiss his jaw. She wants to tell him _we're going to get through this_ but she's not sure she's got it in her to tell him that when she really has no idea what's going to happen at all. She reaches behind her back and takes one of his hands in hers, twining their fingers together.

He lets her lead him back down the corridor a little ways, and she opens the door and steps inside. He stops in the doorway with his eyes closed, and he takes a deep breath before he opens them to look straight at her; tunnel vision. She leads him forwards again, and he never takes his eyes off her as she closes the door.

She glances away from him to her left, looking at the boy lying in the bed, and finds her eyes fill with tears she can't force back this time. She looks back at Fitz and tells him quietly, "Look."

With his lips pressed into a thin line, he slowly, stopping and starting after each movement, turns his head. He sucks in a deep breath, fast, and lets it out just as quickly.

"Oh- _God-_ " He stammers, momentarily not convinced his legs will hold him up, "That's my boy, that's my little boy-" he chokes out, his grip on her hand becoming near painful, and he doesn't let go when he moves to stand beside the bed. That's when his legs give out; when he reaches down to brush a hand over Gerry's freshly washed now-shoulder length hair.

He can't believe this is really happening – because things like this simply don't happen. Nobody gets this kind of respite from their grief, it just doesn't happen, it _doesn't fucking happen_. It's been _eight months_ since a doctor in this very same hospital had declared him dead, since they'd buried him, and that means that for Gerry, it's been those same eight months that he's spent in a hole in the ground beneath B6-13.

_Eight Months._

"Who did this?" He forces out between struggled breaths and gritted teeth, "Who did this to him, _why_ would someone do this?"

"It had to have been Rowan," Liv tells him helplessly as she kneels down beside him with her arm wrapped around his back, "But as for how and why…" She trails off, "We're looking into it." She promises him, refusing to say the words _I don't know_ out loud in this context, "Huck is tracking him down and Quinn is going through all of his most trusted former agents and trying to figure out who else was involved. No matter how powerful he was, he couldn't pull off something like this without help."

"I want them dead, Liv." He tells her, his furious anger broken up by his broken heart, "I want them found, beaten within an inch of their lives and then I want them dead."

"Hey." She says, turning his head to make him look at her, "We'll get them." She swears to him, "They will not get away with this." He turns his body into her; needing the comfort her contact gives him that no one else can. "He's safe." She whispers, "And he's checked in as a John Doe so even if someone comes looking for him they won't find him here, he's safe."

He looks back up at Gerry over the top of Liv's head as is promptly gripped with further shock when he realizes that his son's eyes are open, his gaze set firmly on the two of them and a tear rolling down the side of his face. "Gerry?" He says, standing so quickly he almost loses his balance, "Gerry, can you hear me?"

"We think so." Liv answers for him since she knows he won't answer for himself, "He's been conscious since we found him and the hospital have been running tests since we got him here. So far they haven't found anything other than dehydration and a few healing wounds, he just… won't speak."

"Did they hurt you?" Fitz asks him, "Is that why you don't want to talk? You're safe now, son, we won't let anything happen to you."

Gerry just looks up at him, and without saying a word he reaches shakily for Fitz' hand. He catches it, wishing with a marbled mix of frustration and desperation that he could force his hands to stop shaking. He wants, more than anything, to be strong for his son but truth be told he feels nothing close to strong right now; the farthest thing from it, in fact.

Liv's phone buzzes in her pocket and she turns away from Fitz and Gerry, wiping her cheeks to clear away the tears that have fallen.

**_Quinn:_ **

_Do you have a minute? We need to talk._

"Quinn needs me." Liv says, locking her phone and dropping it back into her pocket as she heads for the door, "I'll be back as soon as I can." Gerry shifts restlessly on the bed and Fitz squeezes his hand reassuringly when he notices.

"Livvie." Fitz says, and she stops and turns back around to face him. He seems to struggle with what exactly he wants to say to her for a minute before finally he manages, "Just- thank you."

"Of course." She whispers back, offering him a soft smile. "I'll be right back but call me if you need anything."

Fitz nods and as Liv reaches for the door handle she says, almost without meaning to actually say it out loud, "You need to call Mellie." They look at one another in silence, and it's a long time before he nods.

"I know. I- I'm going to wait." He tells her, "I'm going to need to give her solid proof to get her to believe this, and I think DNA might be about the only thing that'll cut it in this instance."

"We'll need something of his." Liv says, nodding, "And from there it'll be about twenty four hours before we get the results." She can understand his line of thinking though it sounds cruel to make Mellie wait. The truth is that for all her faults, Mellie had completely fallen apart when Gerry had died. It had been the guilt that got to her in the end – the final straw being the night three months after he'd died when she'd realized that she couldn't actually remember the last time she'd told her eldest son (or any of her children for that matter) that she loved him. Distraught and inconsolable, she'd thrown some things into a bag, called her lawyer and instructed him to file for a divorce with Fitz, and moved out that night. She wouldn't answer her phone, her email… nothing. They'd quickly tracked her down to her family's estate in Nashville but her step-father had insisted that they stay away and leave her alone. She'd been through enough, he said, and they'd been inclined to agree.

"We'll do it for her but I don't need the test. I know it's him." Fitz tells her, turning back to look at Gerry, who's eyes are huge and staring, full of tears as his free hand shifts on the bed like he's reaching out for something. "Gerry?" He says, voice full of concern, "What is it, what's wrong?" Gerry makes a noise of distress, his reaching becoming more desperate, and Fitz follows his eye line. He could be wrong, but it looks like his son is reaching out for Liv. "I think he wants you," He says, and Liv takes a handful of quasi-tentative steps towards him.

He stretches his hand towards her and she takes it automatically as soon as she's close enough. "He got scared when you said you were leaving." Fitz says quietly, looking up at Liv who's looking down at Gerry, "Do you have to talk to Quinn right now?"

Gerry's making pre-crying sniffling noises, his fingers opening and closing around her hand, and Liv doesn't answer Fitz, just takes in the sight of his son clutching at her hand with tears in her eyes.

"Liv?" Fitz whispers, the lump in his throat returning with full force.

"Um," She takes a deep breath to steady herself and takes her phone back out of her pocket, dialing Quinn's number, "Hold on, I'll- Hold on."

"What happened?" Quinn asks, answering almost immediately and guessing that Liv's calling to tell her she can't make it to meet with her as planned.

"It's not a good time." Liv says, forcibly steadying her voice, "Can we talk about this on the phone?"

"Definitely not." Quinn answers, "Hold on, I'll come to you."

"No," Liv says immediately, "We're not discussing this in front of him, he's been through enough."

"We don't exactly need to talk. I just need to show you something – actually, it might help if you could show it to the President, too." Quinn tells her, and Liv glances between Fitz and Gerry.

"What?" Fitz asks her.

"Quinn wants to come down here and show me- well, us, something. She says we don't need to talk, he won't hear anything."

Fitz looks down at Gerry, who's watching them talk to each other with his eyes flicking back and forth between them like he's watching a tennis match, "Would you be okay with that?" Fitz asks him, hoping that he'll finally open his mouth and answer, but Gerry just looks at him before briefly squeezing his hand. Fitz looks back up at Liv. "Alright." He nods, "But we stop immediately if it looks like it's getting to him."

Liv relays the answer to Quinn before they end the call, and she sets her phone down on the bedside cabinet, hoping that whatever information Quinn brings them, it will finally offer some answers, as opposed to just more questions.


	3. Radio Silence

Both Fitz and Olivia look up when they hear a knock at the door, and, remembering Gerry's reaction to her moving as if to leave earlier, Liv turns back to him, "I'm not leaving, I'll be right back." She tells him as she lets go of his hand and walks across the room to open the door.

Quinn steps inside as Liv closes the door behind her, but neither moves to walk closer to Gerry and Fitz. Quinn instead hands her a blank manila file folder without a word, and Liv opens it. The first thing she sees when she does is the ID photo of a man printed in A4; white, clean-shaven, short greying hair and dark eyes. She looks back at Quinn in search of an explanation of who the man is, and she says, "Do you recognize him?"

"No." Liv answers, shaking her head. Her gaze rises from the photo to Fitz, silently asking him without asking to come and look.

He breaks their eye contact and looks down at Gerry. "I'm just going over there with Liv, okay?" He reassures him, waiting for Gerry to squeeze his hand in confirmation before he does. He moves to stand beside Olivia, his hand landing on her lower back as he looks over her shoulder at the photo. "I know that guy." He says the second he lays eyes on the picture, "He was one of the doctors who worked on Gerry the day he- that day."

"Turn the page." Quinn instructs, voice loaded with; _you're not going to believe this._ The second page is another photograph, this time a slightly grainy shot clearly taken from a CCTV camera of the same man driving an ambulance late at night, just a few hours after Gerry was pronounced dead. "That camera is a block away from Wonderland." Quinn shares, "It doesn't explain the why, but it takes care of the how. Rowan obviously used this guy as a plant to fake his death and transport his body out of the morgue and back to B6-13."

"He must've had some kind of help." Fitz says, shaking his head, "That's a lot of moving parts for one man to be responsible for."

"We're still looking into it." Quinn nods, "Bear in mind that this is still just a theory at this point – we still don't know exactly how they faked his death medically speaking. We're working under the assumption that he was injected with some kind of toxin that made him appear to be dead; most likely tetrodotoxin, but we'll get back to you when we're more sure." She turns as if to leave and then quickly turns back, "Also, you should know that Wilson Clarke's people called and said it was urgent, and reporters from The New York Times and The Washington Post have called asking if there's any truth to the rumor that the two of you are here and that one or both of you have been admitted."

"Thank you, Quinn." Liv says, "Call me the second you have anything else."

Quinn nods, leaving the folder for Fitz and Olivia, before taking her leave. Liv looks down at the image of the doctor driving the ambulance that probably had Gerry in the back of it and nausea rises in her throat as Fitz takes the folder out of her hands. There's a prolonged silence, and Liv wishes beyond all else that there were something, anything she could say to him right now that would make this better.

"When I find him?" Fitz says quietly, looking down at the picture as if he's committing it to memory, "I'm going to destroy him." He snaps the folder closed, his face drawn with the kind of rage that is so quiet, so tightly controlled, that it inspires fear even when it's not directed at you.

She glances quickly over at Gerry to make sure he hasn't heard what's happening over here, but if he has it doesn't show; he's just staring at the ceiling in silence, the same soft bubble of silence that's surrounded him since the moment he stopped crying after, with Quinn pushing from down in The Hole and Huck and Liv pulling from the ground above, he'd fallen into Liv's arms and clutched at her like he thought she was going to disappear into thin air right in front of his eyes.

Liv steps quickly into Fitz' space, one hand on his face to make him look at her. "We are going to figure this out," She promises him, an edge of fierceness creeping into her voice out of desperation for her words to be true and determination that they will be, "And Gerry _is_ going to be okay, but right now he doesn't need the President. He just needs his Dad."

Fitz nods, and his grief and rage and shock are as clear on his face as they were the day Gerry died. He slowly drops his forehead to rest against hers, his heart beating so fast it feels like it's on vibrate.

She knows how stressed he is, how afraid he is and how it's only stressing him out further trying not to show it, and she doesn't want to make it worse but right now there is a somewhat more pressing concern than either one of their present emotional states.

"We need to get Gerry out of here." Liv says to him quietly, "If that doctor was compromised, and clearly at least one or two others are or were also to pull something like this off without detection, we have no idea who we can trust here – and the longer we spend here the more likely it is that someone's going to start asking questions."

"I know," He whispers back, and her words don't distress him further, they just become another note in the chorus of his discordantly bellowing anxiety, "I know, Livvie, but he needs to be in a hospital."

"There's an infirmary at Camp David." Liv points out the second the idea occurs to her – it's designed primarily for emergencies only, but it wouldn't take much to convert it into somewhere Gerry could stay for as long as it takes until the doctors are satisfied that his vitals and general health are going to stay strong and he can return to his own bedroom. "There we can control access to him and make sure that no one finds out about this before we have a way of explaining it - if The New York Times and The Washington Post already know we're here, we at least need to put to bed any rumors that there's something wrong with you."

"If the rumor is out there it's too late to just sneak out and back to the White House – not that I can just leave him here like this."

"I know." Liv says, thinking on her feet, "So when you have to leave… you walk out the front door." She says, a plan beginning to occur to her, and he looks at her like she must have lost her mind.

Gerry makes a noise of dissent from across the room, and they both turn automatically to face him. He's staring at them, his eyes wide and full of tears, shaking his head quickly, and Liv realizes only a second after Fitz does that they've stopped whispering and that Gerry can hear them discussing how to leave.

Fitz is at his side in an instant, "Hey, hey, I'm sorry," He says quickly, "We're not going to leave you here alone, Gerry." It doesn't seem to calm him down much; he's whimpering and shifting uneasily on the bed, "What is it, Gerry, what's wrong?" He asks, but Gerry only shakes his head quickly, his lips twitching like he wants to say something but can't. Fitz looks helplessly to Liv and she knows that even if, in any other situation, he would have known exactly what to do, here in this one there's so much worry and shock and adrenaline coursing through his brain that he just can't think right.

Her eyes dart about the room until they land on her purse, and she pulls it onto her lap, taking out her day planner and a pen, flipping past the dates and to the blank note pages at the back. "Do you think you could write down what you want to say?" She asks him, offering them both to him.

Gerry nods, eyes still full of tears, and Fitz takes the notebook and sets it on the bed next to him, and Gerry takes the pen from her.

_u have 2 leave sometime_ , he writes, slowly, with his hand shaking badly enough that it looks like it was written by a second grader.

"Not at the same time." Fitz answers as soon as he reads it, "If we can't both be here at the same time, we'll work it out so that one of us can be, okay?"

Gerry nods and shakily writes; _will u stay now that my Dad has 2 go?_

With a plan forming clearly in her mind, Liv shakes her head and turns to Fitz. "You stay here." She says, "I'll go and make sure everything is set up, and then I'll come back here before you leave."

"Where are you going?" He asks her, "And what are we going to do about the reporters asking questions?"

Liv explains her plan to him, and, knowing that she's right, he agrees that it could definitely work. "Do you have your phone?" she asks when she's done, and Fitz nods quickly, taking out one half of their latest burner pair – though lately, given how little they're apart, they're growing a little obsolete. She reaches out and takes it and puts it in Gerry's upturned palm, curling his fingers around it with her own. "There's only one number in here, and it's programmed to the first speed dial." She tells him, reaching into her purse with her free hand and holding out her half of the pair so that he can see it, "The other one is mine. If I'm not back in half an hour, I promise to call you right away, and you or your Dad can call me anytime, as many times as you want, okay?"

_What if u don't come back?_ He writes shakily, vulnerability and fear drawn deeply into his face.

"I will." She promises, "And then you'll know that I'll always come back." and Fitz, God, he could fucking cry with how much he loves her in that moment. He watches her leave wishing she could stay, but adoring her for – even now, in the middle of all this – being able to keep a level head and do what's needed.

As soon as she's out of sight, his gaze returns to Gerry. He doesn't have a clue what to do next. It's almost like it was when Gerry was a newborn – Fitz would stare at him for hours, not wanting to miss anything and happy to just be with him, be _near_ him – except, back then he'd had time to prepare for his arrival, he'd been excited and counting down the days until he could meet his son. This time around, he's spent eight months missing him, cursing God for stealing him away and then in the same breath praying that there was some way they could see each other again.

It's been years since once of his prayers was answered, and even in all the time he spent bargaining with God it never occurred to him that this could actually happen.

He feels something nudge at his wrist where it rests on the bed, and he looks down to see Gerry pushing the book Liv had given him against him. He looks down at it, tilting his head to get a better angle and in shaky handwriting it says; _I've never seen u cry before._

He hadn't even noticed he was doing it again, and he quickly reaches up to wipe his face. "I'm sorry," He says, and this time he's very aware of his eyes filling with tears, "I just can't believe you're here." He's looking at him like he's trying to take in every detail of his face, like his comparing and contrasting the boy he sees in front of him to the boy whom he last saw and searching for any difference, anything he might have missed. "I can't tell you how many times I dreamed about this."

_No dreams,_ Gerry writes slowly, _just nightmares._

"The nightmare is over," Fitz promises him, "I'm not going to let anyone hurt you ever again, and I'm so sorry it took us so long to- we thought you were-" he stops himself again, not sure this is the best time to go into the details, "The point is. You're home now. You're safe. I'm going to keep you safe, okay?"

_Ok_ , he writes, but nothing in his face or body language tells Fitz whether he believes him or he's just humoring him. He's startled out of the moment by his phone buzzing angrily in his pocket, and he already knows who it's going to be before he even looks at the caller ID.

It's almost eight o'clock in the morning and Fitz is a) not at the White House, and b) he hadn't called anyone to say he needed his schedule reorganizing, which means Cyrus thinks he's overslept. He's probably standing outside Liv's apartment hammering the door down. Fitz really feels bad for her neighbors at this point, honestly.

"Give me a minute, I'll be right back." Fitz says to Gerry as he stands up and answers the call at the same time. He heads into the bathroom, not wanting Gerry to be able to hear him in case things get heated and he has to raise his voice. He closes the door and then says, "It's not a great time, Cy."

"So you are awake?" Cyrus answers predictably, "Open the door and let me in before I break the damn thing down!"

"We're not home." Fitz tells him, used to having Cyrus yell at him as though he's the President and Fitz is his Chief of Staff rather than the other way around, "I told you, now really isn't a good time."

What follows is a prolonged silence, then several deep breaths that sound like aborted sentence openings. Finally, with his voice coming out quick and resigned, "Tell me the rumors I've been hearing aren't true."

"I'll call you back later," Fitz tells him, "As soon as Liv gets back, we'll call you and explain."

"No, I want an explanation _now_!" Cyrus demands, "Where are you both, and why do I have people calling for comment about the President and his _girlfriend_ being admitted to James Madison Hospital?"

"I said I'll call you back." Fitz repeats flatly, "Give me an hour, two at most. Oh- and cancel everything for today, no exceptions." He hangs up the phone then, not waiting around to hear his Chief of Staff's imminent protests.

* * *

 

"Olivia Pope for Wilson Clarke." She says into her business phone, striding into Pope and Associates.

"I'll put you through right away." Senator Clarke's highly grateful sounding secretary says.

A few seconds later, he answers the call. "Good morning, Ms. Pope, I can't tell you how relieved I am to receive your call."

"Of course, Senator, how can my team help you?" she asks as she heads through the conference room and into her private office.

"Honestly, it's rather embarrassing, really." He says, and he sounds it, "I made some… ill advised remarks to someone I thought was, uh… a friend, shall we say, but it turns out I may have been… sleeping with the enemy, so to speak."

"You're being blackmailed over your pillow talk." Liv guesses as she sits down behind her desk, and he laughs awkwardly.

"More like, it turned out that the person I was, uh, 'pillow talking' to was actually a reporter." He explains, "I mean, this could ruin my career."

"Are you married?" She asks him, "Kids?"

"For fourteen years." He answers, "And I have two kids – who I really, _really_ don't want to hear about any of this."

"What was the nature of your comments?" She asks, assuming it was some sexual kink or fetish he doesn't want getting out. That's usually what these issues are, anyway.

"Oh, just reminiscing about misspent youth," He answers, "Honestly it could be a lot worse, but I'd like to stop the snowball from rolling itself any bigger."

"Alright, Senator, we can handle that. I'm going to have my associate Abby Whelan fly down to Tennessee to meet you and put this to bed."

"Your associate?" Clarke asks slowly, "You won't be handling the case?"

"I oversee all cases that come through this office, but each one is assigned a case manager to make sure that all of our clients receive the most dedicated and concentrated attention possible." Liv explains, wondering how many times she's recited that speech since she implemented such changes two weeks after Gerry's funeral, when it became clear that between spending almost all of her time at the White House – in both professional and personal capacities – and working eighty hours a week, something had to give.

All her life she'd chosen work over relationships, but not this time, and she'd had little qualms about doing so – because it wasn't like the choice was between work and the boyfriends who insisted it took up too much of her time and demanded that she pay them more attention. The choice was between taking care of Fitz and his family, or leaving them alone to struggle through hell without a touchstone. She doesn't regret it, and anyone who has the gall to stand up and accuse her of being less of a feminist for it will catch the full force of her considerable arsenal. It was her choice, and it was the right one.

"If that's going to be a problem, Senator-"

"No, no, I can't see that it would be, Ms. Pope." Clarke rushes to interject as though he thinks she's going to turn away his business, and on any other day she might feel almost smug about that.

"Fantastic. I'm going to brief Ms. Whelan about your case and she'll be in touch with you within the hour."

"Great. Thank you. Really, thank you so much for doing this."

"I'm just doing my job, Senator. We'll speak soon." She tells him politely, and, ending the call, Olivia checks it off of her to do list. She taps her pen against the top of her desk, uncharacteristically restless in the face of the most unbelievable circumstances she's found herself in that seem to reappear at the forefront of her mind every time she air around her is still and silent.

"Abby, can you come in here please?" Liv calls, a little afraid that if she stops for even a second, she's going to have to really really think about what's going on here, and try to figure out how any of it could be possible, never mind Rowan's clear involvement in it. She doesn't think about him these days, if she can help it. Sometimes she can't, and she has the most unbelievable night terrors that have her screaming and sobbing and sweating bullets and entirely unable to wake up under her own steam. It's one of the few things that she and Fitz still do that terrifies each other – being woken up in the middle of the night to the sound of the love of your life screaming for mercy, or death, or you or some combination of the above is a horrific experience you never get used to. They're both a little – or a lot – broken, in their own ways and in some of the same ways, but there's no time for that now. There's only determination, and love.

The truth will come later, when it can no longer be contained or avoided, when it's tantamount to treason or stupidity to turn it away any longer.

Abby steps through the door into her office a moment later, her face clear with both patience and expectancy.

"I need you to handle Wilson Clarke." Olivia says without looking up from the few accumulated files on her desk, "It should be a pretty easy fix."

"You just jinxed it." Abby grins, but Liv doesn't smile back, and Abby notices. "Liv… is something going on?"

"Everything's fine, Abby." Liv answers calmly, and Abby watches her carefully without saying a word. She's been with Olivia long enough now to know when she's dealing with a rapidly rising stress level, though she still can't always accurately discern when Liv's lying and telling the truth. Privately, Abby doubts even Grant can do that and they're closer than she thought two human beings could (or should) ever be.

"Are you sure?" She asks hesitantly, "Because Quinn called earlier."

Liv looks up sharply, "What did she say?"

"Not much." Abby says, now sure that something's up, "Just that if any reporters called me or the office asking if you were at James Madison with the President I should tell them no comment and hang up. Which is definitely weird, because Quinn doesn't handle the publicity-media side of the operation. That's us."

"She was right." Olivia answers, "Radio silence."

"Radio silence about _what_?" Abby presses, clearly concerned, "Why were you guys at the hospital? Are you sick? Is _he_ sick?" Abby pauses, and something like recognition crosses her face, "Oh my God, Liv… are you pregnant?"

"No, Abby, I'm not pregnant." Liv says immediately, sighing deeply because she knows that Abby isn't going to let this one go – and that should it get out that they were at the hospital at the same time, that will be the first assumption of a lot of other people/journalists/media outlets, too. "I will explain what's going on, but not yet."

This time it's Abby's turn to sigh, because she knows she won't get any more out of Liv at this point. The question is, should she dig or should she wait for Liv to tell her? "Alright." She agrees finally, "I should get going, then."

Liv looks back down at her list of things to do as Abby turns to leave, and at the last second she says quickly, "Thank you."

Glancing over her shoulder as she pulls the door closed, Abby smiles sympathetically – if it wasn't obvious that something was going on before, it definitely is now. "You got it, Liv."

Liv tries to smile back but doesn't quite achieve it, and as soon as the door is closed Liv stands up and crosses the room to the wardrobe that houses her safe. Punching in the code, she's almost thankful for the paranoia that largely enveloped all of them during the immediate aftermath of Gerry's "death" – and, most specifically, for Huck's insistence of buying them all a small cache of burner phones, just in case the need for them arose. She takes one of the phones out, still wrapped in plastic, and heads back to her desk with it, being careful to lock up the safe beforehand. As soon as the wrapping is discarded and the phone has booted up, Liv double checks the number jotted on her list and dials.

"What?" The person on the other end answers on the third ring, like always.

"I have a job for you." She says, also dispensing with pleasantries – like always – and there's a momentary pause of silence before-

"It's been a while, Ms. Pope."

"I hope I didn't hurt your feelings." She says dryly, before rattling off a list of every drug currently on Gerry's medical chart, plus a few other extra items that might come in handy down the line.

"You're either nursing someone back to health or trying to kill them." He throws back, "Would you be offended if I told you I was hoping for the latter?"

"I need a enough for a long term supply, in bulk, no questions asked." Liv says, ignoring his quips, "And I need it within forty eight hours."

"That's a rush order so it's going to cost you, Ms. Pope, and I'm talking serious cash."

"Name your price." Liv answers calmly.

There's another pause before he dispenses with the jokes and gets down to the serious business at hand. "Fifty. Cash _._ "

"Deal." Liv answers, in no mood to negotiate, "Twenty thousand upfront and the other thirty when you get it all to me."

"Deal." He parrots, "Have one of your people meet my guy on the corner of East and 12th for a brush past in ninety minutes. If he's late, deals off and you and I never do business again, likewise if the police become involved and my good name gets besmirched. Your contact is blond and wearing a gray business suit with a purple tie."

"Hour and a half, East and 12th." Liv confirms, "She'll be there. Five six, brunette, with a blue shirt and a black messenger bag."

He hangs up the phone without another word, and Liv calls Quinn into the room. She's halfway through explaining what she needs her to do when her phone – her link to Fitz – buzzes on the table. "Hold on." She says, answering the call quickly, "Hello?"

"Hi, Liv." Fitz says, "We just wanted to see how you're doing."

"I'm okay, I'm just at the office." She answers, sure that she's on speaker phone and this call is more for Gerry's benefit than Fitz', "Abby's handling the client who called and I'm about halfway done with everything I need to do."

There's a pause, and then Fitz says, "Gerry wants to know when you'll be back."

For a second, Liv can't even believe the words Fitz is saying – can't entirely wrap her brain around how much things have changed in less than twenty four hours – even twelve hours ago, in fact, they were standing in her kitchen doing the dishes from dinner (he'd cooked) and discussing whether or not sending Teddy to preschool was a good idea or not (they'd resolved to revisit the topic in six months or so), and the pain of Gerry's absence lingered the same way it had for the past eight months, but they were learning the choreography of their new normal. Now, Gerry's back, but their old normal isn't. She knows that somehow, someway there's a logical explanation for what's going on and how it's possible, but right now – right now, it just feels like a miracle.

"It should just be another half an hour, Gerry," she says, "I'm going to go back the grocery store on my way back to grab you a notebook and some pens, do you want any snacks or anything?"

Without a pause that she knows Gerry would need to write an answer, Fitz says, "Yes, he says he wants a salad and a nice, healthy fruit smoothie to help with his recovery."

"Well, if that's what Gerry wants." Liv says, knowing that he didn't have an ounce to do with that request.

"Oh- I'm sorry, it looks like he's changed his mind." Fitz says, reading Gerry's requests, "He says-" he pauses, laughs, "He says that he wants a chocolate cake the size of his head and as much McDonalds as you can carry in a wheelbarrow. Also a pizza with everything on it and a vat of- _a vat, really? Okay-_ and a  vat of Diet Coke."

Liv laughs, because Fitz is laughing, and this is the strangest and perhaps best day ever but also the most emotional and frightening, "I'll see what I can do." She answers, grinning, "Do you want anything, Fitz?"

"I'll have what he's having."

"Perfect, I'll get you a salad." Liv answers, grinning because she knows he's rolling his eyes.

* * *

 

When Liv walks through the door, half an hour later as promised, with two McDonalds paper bags and a boxed drinks holder balanced on top of a deep, square brown box from Sprinkles Cupcakes, that's balanced on top of a Pizza Hut carry out box, both Gerry and Fitz grin at her widely, and Liv sets the small mountain of junk food on the foot of Gerry's bed.

"It's good to see you sat up." Liv says to Gerry, who rolls his eyes and aims a pseudo-glare at Fitz. "What are we starting with then?" She asks, and Gerry writes quickly before turning her diary around so that she can see it.

_cake please!_ He's wearing a grin, clearly pleased with the turn of events that has him unexpectedly eating his favourite foods when around twelve hours ago he was in a hole in the ground with a leaky faucet for water and a rapidly dwindling supply of canned food. Fitz and Olivia exchange a grin at the display of enthusiasm, and Liv reshuffles the pile to pass him the box of cupcakes. He sets it in his lap and pulls of the lid, licking his lips as he looks inside.

"There's two red velvet, two raspberry-dark chocolate, and four triple chocolate." Liv tells him, gesturing to each so that he'll know which one's which since she's pretty sure he'll want the triple chocolate.

"I'll take one of those." Fitz says, reaching immediately for a raspberry-dark chocolate, just the way Liv had known he would, and she smiles fondly at them both as she sits down on the chair across from him and takes a red velvet.

She watches Fitz and Gerry eating cupcakes, and once again Liv finds herself overcome with the reality check that Gerry really is _back_. He's right here. It's going to be a readjustment for all of them – so much has changed in the going on nine months since he's been gone; Mellie's gone and Fitz and Karen are different, forever changed by the experience of losing someone they both loved so much. And Liv, she's gotten to know who they are now, and is watching Teddy grow up day by day, and she loves them, and now she will get to know Gerry the same way. It's strange and unexpected but also the most wonderful surprise. Those don't come often in Olivia's world, and to be perfectly frank she's waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Fitz watches as Liv's face turns introspective, and worried. She rests her part eaten cupcake on her knee and watches as Gerry demolishes the last of his cake, and then she looks away.

"I almost forgot," She says as if to distract herself, setting the cupcake down on the cabinet by Gerry's bed and taking a plastic bag out of her purse, "I picked you up some notebooks and a pack of pens just while you- well, just until you're ready to talk again."

Fitz smiles at her thoughtfulness, and finds that he's so, so unbelievably relieved to have her here with them. He wants to ask her what's wrong, but he's pretty sure that it's got to have something to do with this whole situation they've found themselves in, and he doesn't want to ask her in front of Gerry just in case he's right.

Gerry takes it from her and peers inside the bag before passing the box of cupcakes to Fitz. He opens the notebook – spiral bound and blue – to the first page, and uncaps one of the pens.

_Thank you_ he writes, holding it up to show her, and her smile returns though it's softer than before.

"You're welcome, Gerry." She says with a warm smile.

"This has to be bad parenting." Fitz remarks to her, opening the McDonalds bag and eating three fries at once as he passes the pizza box to his son, "Go slow," He reminds him gently, "It's been a while since you ate properly."

She watches them interact with one another, her smile never fading though her earlier worry seems to be - it's almost as though all her shock and amazement have simply been replaced by the notion that _of course_ Gerry is alive, of course he's back and of course he's sitting in front of her eating junk food like any other teenager – he was always meant to be here so where else would he be?


	4. Long Road Back

Cyrus approaches the podium filled with pent up frustration that he hides well from the abrasive horde of journalists who fill up the press room everyday. They are predictably over excited today what with all the rumors flying about the President's presence in hospital this morning, and doubly so over Olivia's presence at his side. The rumor of a pregnancy out of wedlock had exploded predictably fast and Cyrus is almost less irritated by that than he is about the fact that though he knows it's false, he has no idea what the real truth is. They won't tell him anything, not a word, other than to dictate the plan he's to follow.

He raises his hands to quiet them all down but someone in the back of the crowd apparently can't wait. "Mr. Beene, can you confirm or deny that-"

"If you let me get through what I need to say, all of your questions will be answered." Cyrus interrupts, and when he's sure they're not going to begin arbitrarily flinging questions at him again, he says, "The President spent this morning at James Madison hospital undergoing routine annual medical tests-"

"Doesn't a Navy doctor give him a check up every two weeks?" A different reporter interrupts, and Cyrus resists the urge to throw his talking points at the man's head.

"Yes, Bruce, he does, but since the President was shot in the chest and head three years ago he undergoes annual MRI and CT scans along with several other routine tests to ensure that the President's health remains as good as it's always been." When he's answered the question he ignores the other people clearly jostling for his attention to ask their own and he powers through with what he was originally supposed to say, "As I was saying, President Grant was not admitted as a patient, nor is there any cause for alarm about his presence there today." He pauses, with much more he _wants_ to say, but heeding the warning he'd heard in Fitz and Olivia's voices to trust them and not go rogue, he finishes, "The President would like to thank the nurses and doctor's at James Madison Hospital for their care and conduct today, but this is a minor, routine situation and we will be treating it as such. We ask that you do the same. That's all."

With a short nod, he turns from the podium and heads for the door, doing his best to ignore that everyone behind him is shouting more questions at his back, and most of them asking about Olivia to boot. He dials Olivia's number as he walks through the halls towards his office.

"How did it go?" She asks as soon as she answers the phone.

"Fine," He answers shortly, "It didn't sound like we were hiding anything at all."

"Cyrus-"

"Why would you tell me not to refute the rumor that you're having his baby in the same damn breath as telling me that you're not pregnant?" He demands, "What the hell is going on that you would rather people assumed that before you've even officially gone public as a couple?"

"Cyrus, there is more at stake here than you could even imagine." Olivia tells him sharply, "So for once, I need you not to argue, not to push and – and I can't stress this enough, Cyrus – _not to dig_."

Cyrus doesn't reply immediately. He steps into his office and slams the door behind him, stalking over to the window to stare at the swaying trees outside. What the fuck could they be hiding that's so serious that they also feel the need to hide it from him? The only conclusion he can come to is that whatever it is, they would rather accept the inevitable dip in the polls that will come when people think Fitz is sleeping around and knocking up former employees than they would tell the truth. They're _courting_ the rumor of a pregnancy, he realizes, using it to distract people so that they won't dig any deeper into why they were at James Madison. The rest of it still doesn't make sense, and no one's talking. Upon arriving back at the White House an hour ago, after smiling and waving to waiting press stacked outside the hospital, Fitz had reinstated several meetings on his official schedule and had Lauren delete any record that they were ever cancelled.

Whatever it is they're hiding, clearly they're expecting an investigation with enough reach to take on the Oval – which means Senate. Which means impeachment. Which means… Cyrus sighs deeply. Which means he has no choice but to dig. He needs to know before this blows up in everyone's face.

"Fine." He says to Olivia, lying through his teeth, "I'll leave it alone."

* * *

 

With Cyrus placated (ish), and Fitz successfully snuck back into Gerry's room later that night, Fitz sits at Gerry's bedside and watches him fall asleep, the same way he used to when Gerry was little though this time he's fighting the periodic but near-constant urge to shake him awake just to make sure that he's not dying again. The memory of watching it happen the first time around, of watching the hospital staff wheeling his body away on a gurney, of only being allowed to say goodbye to him through the viewing window of the mortuary because as yet the CDC hadn't ascertained exactly how contagious Gerry's form of "meningitis" really was, it all screams through his head like it's happening again.

His eyes burn but he doesn't cry, just tightens his jaw and reaches out to give Gerry's hand a brief squeeze before letting it drop back into his lap.

"I used to do that to you when you were in here after you were shot." Liv says, breaking the silence for the first time in almost an hour. He turns to look at her, and finds her watching him understandingly. "Touch you, to make sure you were still warm." She explains, and it's only then that he realizes he was even doing that.

He doesn't know how to reply though, so instead he just turns back to look at Gerry and says, "I need to make a call." A few seconds later, Liv's hand shifts into his line of vision holding her phone. "Thank you." He says quietly, never looking away from Gerry's chest, rising and falling, and rising and falling. He opens up her saved contacts and scrolls until he finds the number for the White House and, hoping that whoever answers doesn't automatically assume it's a hoax and immediately hang up on him, he dials the number.

"Good afternoon, Ms. Pope, I'm afraid the President is unavailable at the moment-"

"Lauren, it's me." Fitz says, "Why did you think it was Liv?"

There's a pause. "We have… a pretty sophisticated form of caller ID, Mr. President." She says slowly, and he thinks _right, focus,_ "How can I help you, Sir?"

"First of all, I need you to go into my private office." He tells her, and there's another, longer pause then-

"Yes, Sir, then what?" She asks.

"There's a safe in the wall, behind the painting directly across from the door. The code is two-seven-oh-seven." He hears the door close, and then, several seconds later the sound of the painting being set on the ground, and then the rapid beeping of the safe being opened. "There's a blue address book in there, find Carlisle Drake and read me his numbers."

A few seconds later she recites all three numbers that he has for the man (Work, cell and home), and he jots them down on the back page of Gerry's new notebook.

"Anything else, Sir?"

"Put it all back how you found it and don't tell anyone about this – not even Cyrus." He orders her.

"Yes, Sir." She answers right away with only a small amount of confusion spilling through, and he hangs up the phone there and then. He checks the time – almost ten o'clock at night – and decides to wait until the morning to make the call. For now, it seems like the best thing to do is just let Gerry sleep and begin to recuperate from his ordeal.

There's a pause, and then into the quiet Olivia says, "You need to change the code to the safe as soon as possible."

"You think we can't trust her?" Fitz asks seriously.

"I don't distrust her, but I've been wrong before." Liv answers honestly, "There's not many people I do trust at the moment."

_I'm not saying we shouldn't trust Lauren, I'm saying that we trusted Tom and look how that turned out._

Sighing deeply, and clearly thinking along the same lines as her, Fitz nods shortly.

The night draws on with the kind of slow moving time that you don't feel the need to object to, nor do they object to the silence they sit in until they're eyes go dry from being propped open so long. Twenty four hours ago, they were lying in Liv's bed making plans for a future drastically different from the one they're now facing – well, not in content, just in character. Finally, they curl up on the sofa in the corner of his room, exhausted from the unbelievable day they've just lived through.

There's an ocean of questions and words stirring at the root of his tongue, buzzing like bees demanding to leave the hive and wreak a little havoc on the world. He keeps quiet, and keeps his head tipped over to rest against Liv's hair so as not to risk allowing anyone to be stung by such thoughts, and he wonders if she's thinking along the same lines.

He simply cannot wrap his mind around what's happening. It's not possible. It has to be some kind of dream, except it isn't. It's real, and it most definitely is happening, and it's making his spine shake. He leans up over Olivia, and she looks up at him with one hand on his biceps and the other cradling his face, and it reminds him of the reverse situation eight months ago when he'd called her the night Gerry had been taken from him, and after almost a full minute of silence that neither one of them had been able to fill she'd just said to him, _tell me what you need_ , and the only answer he'd been able to give her was, _you._

It wasn't romantic, or an _if you can, would you mind._ It was just shy of on his knees and begging. In fact, looking back, that's exactly, literally, how it happened. Nothing and everything has changed since that day, and just when they'd finally begun to settle down and find some kind of new normal, the universe had to throw them another curveball – because God forbid they have any type of simplicity in their lives – not that he's complaining about this _particular_ curveball.

He bites his lips together to stop them from quivering, and shifts down to rest his head on her chest. She wraps her arms around him and he exhales shakily against her collarbone, letting her presence and her warmth steady him.

"I feel like I'm going to wake up any minute." He admits tiredly, and her hand pauses where it's running through his hair.

"You are awake." She reminds him, and when he looks up at her she's smiling, her face lit up all the way to her eyes and he can't help but smile back. She's right. He is awake, and _this is really happening._

Gerry isn't dead.

Unlike the last time he watched his son lying in a hospital bed at this very same hospital, this time he gets to take his boy home.

They haven't even begun to discuss how they're going to explain this – because sooner or later, they're going to have to – what they're going to say when the buzzards come calling and the flies hit the windows whilst searching for a wall to perch on and spy from, but that's a conversation for tomorrow. For now, all Fitz has space for is happiness, and relief.

* * *

 

Whilst he'd been trapped at the bottom of that cramped dungeon, Gerry had slept fitfully at best. It would either feel like he'd gone days without sleeping though he's sure that can't be true, or he'd sleep on and off, cruelly jerking awake after brief snatches of peace, the cycle repeating itself over and over seemingly endlessly.

His first night in the hospital, he sleeps like a log for eighteen hours straight, finally feeling safe enough to let his guard down that way, and he only wakes up once during that time. He's not sure what time it is, but weak strains of pre-dawn light are trickling through the window between the slatted blinds, and his eyes meander sluggishly around the still unfamiliar room though he knows where he is, so there is, thankfully, only a slight spike in his currently ever-present nerves before he remembers that.

His gaze settles on the couch across the room from him, and the first thing he sees is his Dad. He feels a jolt of surprise – _did he actually spend the night here?_ – which only grows when he realizes that his Dad isn't alone. Liv is here too, which, whilst not that surprising in and of itself, her position curled up against his Dad's chest is. His arms are wrapped tightly around her – protectively, lovingly, even – with her face resting in the crook of his neck and his cheek resting against the top of her head, and for the first time Gerry notices what's absent rather than what's here: his Father's wedding ring.

He swallows hard, wondering exactly how much he's missed in the time he's been away, wondering too why still, two days since he was rescued, his Mother still hasn't shown her face. It's not like she's going to be winning any awards for being Mother of the year any time soon, or that they've ever been particularly close but surely… but surely she'd at least be happy to see him? Be relieved that her son isn't dead?

He resolves to ask Karen what the hell is going on as soon as he gets the chance, knowing that it's unlikely he'll get the truth from his Dad. With that final thought it's not long before he drifts back off to sleep.

* * *

 

Fitz wakes up a couple hours later, groaning at the dull ache in his back from spending the night on a lumpy couch. He sits up, turning to plant his feet on the ground and stretch out his back as Liv steps through the bathroom door and back into the room.

"Morning." She says, offering a soft smile, "Did you sleep okay?"

"My back is killing me," He complains with a yawn as she walks back towards him, his hands settling on her hips whilst hers settle one on his shoulder and the other in his hair. "I'm old." He sighs with his eyes drifting to half mast at the feeling of her fingertips stroking over his scalp.

"You're not old." She tells him, and he tips his head back to look up at her as one thumb brushes over the grey at his temples, "You're getting there, though." She teases, a smile playing on her lips.

"You're so mean to me." Fitz murmurs, turning his head to kiss the palm of her hand.

"I never said I didn't like it." Liv says playfully, "The silver fox look is incredibly sexy."

"Don't you forget it." He laughs and pulls himself up from the couch to stand up, leaning down to kiss her. They kiss slowly, warmly, with the ease of two people who know each other better than anyone else. They've built a certain level of security in each other and in their relationship over the last few months that they've never had before, and Olivia is a little amazed that she still hasn't had a moment of panic, of feeling like she's being suffocated just because Fitz is well and truly through the walls she's spent her life building. She's been waiting for it since the night he called her and told her that Mellie had left, but so far it still hasn't happened. It's – and no one's more surprised than she is by it – but it's kind of an amazing feeling, truth be told.

When they break apart, though they don't move away from each other, Fitz says, "I'm going to call Carlisle."

"I think that's best," Liv nods, tipping her head to rest against his chest and wrapping her arms around his waist, whilst his fold around her to hold her close, "The doctors here are brilliant but they can only tell us about his physical health."

His deepest fear, so terrible and overwhelming that he doesn't even know how to bring it up with Liv, is that he makes the mistake of making sure that Gerry is okay – or at least, on his way towards being okay – physically, whilst overlooking the damage this whole experience has done to him mentally and emotionally. By some miracle, he has Gerry back. He's sure that if he were to lose him again – this time permanently, and through his own oversight – he couldn't survive that. It would break his heart, this time irreparably, and if there's anyone he trusts to talk to his son and understand best how to make sure that all his needs are being met, it's Doctor Carlisle Drake.

The last time Fitz saw him was at Olivia's insistence in the aftermath of losing Gerry. Before that, some fifteen or so years previously, it was Doctor Drake who recommended to the Navy that they remove him from active duty for the safety of himself and, potentially, his fellow comrades. They hadn't listened, unfortunately, and it had almost ended in the disaster that the doctor had predicted.

* * *

 

Psychiatric Doctor Carlisle Drake is not a young man. He's is his early seventies though he doesn't quite look it yet, and he is, for all intents and purposes, retired. Not when it comes to the President, however, since he already knows all the classified details that would horrify the public, and has the trust of a man whom Carlisle knows now trusts virtually no one. He had feared that his almost lifelong patient was being overcome with some type of paranoia when he'd received the phone call from him at a little past seven AM, notifying him that a helicopter was on it's way to his house from the Air Force base not far away to bring him immediately to Washington DC, and insisting that whatever the problem was, it couldn't be talked about over the phone – not even the military secure satellite phone that the President had given to him when he was elected, just in case.

When he'd landed in DC, it had been on the helipad atop one of the towers at James Madison, and his level of concern had increased abruptly. What was he walking into here, exactly? He'd been met by the President, who looked in need of a decent meal and a good nights sleep, in the elevator at the roof, and then been let in on what was probably one of the most top secret events in recent American history.

_I need you to make sure he's okay, or at least that he could be, eventually,_ the President had all but begged of him at the end of his explanation, and his protective detail had all looked away quickly, not wanting to intrude.

He'd then stood outside in the hall whilst the President had gone into his son's room to explain who he was and why he was there. He'd expected to hear some protest from inside, an argument perhaps, but there had been nothing, which was both intriguing and worrying. The President had mentioned that his eldest son seemed to be having some trouble talking, and that it almost certainly had to be of a psychological root cause since the doctors here had managed to disprove any physical problems that might impede his speech, and he wonders just how extensive it is. Some type of Aphasia, perhaps – a worrying enough sign on it's own given that it's an indicator of extreme mental trauma.

The President steps out a few moments later, holding the door open for his girlfriend before pulling the door closed behind her.

"You remember Olivia," Fitz says to him, and he nods.

"It's good to see you again, Ma'am." He smiles, but they don't shake hands.

"He's not keen on seeing you, and you should know now that he won't talk to you at all." Fitz warns him, "Liv bought him a notepad and some pens so that he can communicate with us until he feels ready to talk."

"That's a good start, at least we can make sure that he's not being too isolated by it, he's receiving some re-introductory social stimulation," Carlisle nods approvingly, "Will you still be here when I come out, Sir, or did you need me to contact your office?"

"I'll be here." Fitz answers immediately, "Take as long as you need, I have nowhere else to be."

"Alright." Carlisle nods, clearly pleased with that answer, and Fitz watches him step past the agents posted at the door and knock briefly before stepping inside and closing it behind him leaving Fitz on the outside with anxious energy swarming through his insides like buzzing insects.

"Hi, Gerry." He says, "I'm Doctor Carlisle Drake, do you mind if we talk for a little bit?"

Gerry looks up at Carlisle suspiciously before writing quickly in his notebook and turning it around to face him. _U might have 2 do most of the talking._

"You still don't feel like talking?" He asks, and Gerry shakes his head vehemently. "Okay, that's okay, do you think you can tell me why?"

_No_. Gerry writes, his face hard and closed off when he shows the note to the Doctor.

"'No' as in 'no, because I don't know' or 'no, I don't want to talk about it'?"

Gerry doesn't write an answer, he just viciously underlines the word 'No.' twice. Carlisle nods calmly, making a brief mental note of the behavior that the clearly traumatized young man is exhibiting.

"With the understanding that I'm not asking you to tell me what happened, do _you_ remember what happened to you?" Carlisle asks patiently. Gerry nods, and Carlisle asks, "Do you remember who did this to you?" Gerry nods again before picking up his pen.

_Do u?_

"Do I know who did this to you?" He clarifies, and Gerry nods for a third time, giving nothing away.

"Yes." He answers, and Gerry immediately starts writing again.

_Prove it._

"You're okay with me saying his name?" Carlisle checks quickly, knowing that something as simple as hearing or having to say the name of an offender related to someone's trauma can be enough to trigger an emotional reaction them, but Gerry just nods. "Thomas Larsen, who, at the time, was head of your Father's personal protective detail."

_He betrayed us._ Gerry writes, and Carlisle nods, pleased that he's displaying some outward sign of emotion.

"Does that make you angry?"

_We were supposed 2 b able 2 trust him & he kidnapped me. Yes I'm fucking angry._

"Good," Carlisle nods, "That's good, and perfectly understandable."

_Don't patronize me_. Gerry scrawls rapidly, and the expression on his face makes it clear that that's all he's getting from Carlisle's words. It doesn't faze him though, he's dealt with patients like this and worse before in his decades long career – Gerry isn't the first, and he certainly won't be the last.

"I'm not patronizing you. If you were indifferent to Agent Larsen, that could be a sign of depression or even Stockholm Syndrome if there were certain other symptoms involved. Your anger is a normal, human response and the fact that you know you're entitled to it is a good place to start."

Gerry is still staring at him distrustfully, but most of the glare has fallen away thankfully.

_Anything else?_ He writes after a long pause, _cuz I don't need or want my head shrunk, Doc._

"Alright," Carlisle says, "I can understand that. Why don't we talk about something else?"

_Like?_

"How does it feel to be home?"

Gerry makes a noise of frustration and writes quickly before turning his notebook around again, _I'm not in the mood._

"To talk to me?"

Gerry doesn't write a new answer, just shakes the page slightly, as if to repeat and emphasize his words.

Carlisle pauses. He doesn't want to push his young patient too far, but he cannot leave without ascertaining Gerry's feelings about one particular subject.

"Do you want to die, Gerry?" He asks him, keeping his voice deliberately even.

Without making eye contact, he flips back a couple pages and holds up the 'no' again.

"So you don't want to kill yourself."

_I'm done_ Gerry writes, and Carlisle's face never changes.

"With life?"

_W/ this ridiculous fucking conversation,_ Gerry writes, his face having returned to its hard and closed off expression, and Carlisle knows that he won't get any more out of him right now.

"Okay." He says, nodding calmly, "I'm going to talk to your Dad real quick, do you want me to ask him to come and see you first?"

This time, Gerry just shakes his head without looking at the Doctor, doodling in the corner of his notebook. Carlisle nods to himself and steps out of Gerry's room, finding Fitz stood outside across the hall.

"How is he?" Fitz asks as soon as Carlisle pulls the door shut, but he glances down both ends of the corridor before he answers.

"Is there somewhere we can talk privately?" He asks, and any vain hope that Fitz had been holding onto that Gerry might somehow magically come out of this experience unscathed, fades like dust on the wind.

He clears his throat, "There's a private waiting room down the hall." He says, gesturing to his left before turning to the Agent to his right, "When Liv's done on the phone, tell her where we are."

"Yes, Sir." He nods, remaining at his post whilst the rest of the detail shepherd Fitz and Carlisle away down the hall. It's their job to be the invisible last line of protection keeping the President and his family safe – their backs are always to them. They hear nothing, they see nothing, that's the job. But no one envies the rigmarole of the journey their charge is about to undertake.

Fitz opens the door at the end of the hall and walks in ahead of Carlisle before stepping aside to let him in. He closes the door behind him, and two of his agents exchange a glance across the hall, loaded with the concern that there's simply no way for this to end well.

Inside, they're right.

"C-PTSD." The doctor confirms, "He's got what you had when you came back from Iran." It runs his blood cold to imagine Gerry experiencing the same wringer of symptoms that he did. "He's your son." Carlisle says slowly, as if he's weighing every word before he dares let it out, "But he's not your clone. There's no evidence to suggest that suicidal intent is-"

"Don't." Fitz says sharply, raising a hand to stop him. It's hard for him to recall those days, that hell, in terms of his own experience, let alone imagining his little boy suffering the same way that he had. He pictures Gerry, moments away from cutting his wrists, or standing in his bedroom with a pill bottle in one hand and a fifth in the other, and his heart beats so hard that it makes him feel physically sick. He stands up and turns away from Carlisle with his hand shielding his eyes, his thumb and forefinger pressing into his temples as if the external pressure will stop the internal turmoil.

The door opens and Liv steps into the room with her phone in her hand, ready to speak, but the second she sees Fitz she cuts herself off before she starts, and moves immediately to his side. He feels her hands on his sides; warm and grounding him here, where he's needed, not twenty-something years and several thousand miles away.

"I'm fine." He tells her flatly, eager to move away from himself and direct the conversation back to Gerry without Liv noticing how badly he's struggling, "Carlisle says Gerry has C-PTSD."

" _C-_ PTSD?" Liv echoes, "Is that different from …regular PTSD?" She asks, unsure of the correct terminology, and Carlisle nods, gesturing to the seats across from him so that they might speak with more level-headedness. Liv moves to sit down, and Fitz follows her because, as always, her presence and her closeness offer him a sense of clarity and security that he just can't get on his own. "What's the difference between the two?" Liv asks, taking Fitz' left hand into her lap and holding it between both of her own.

"Speaking very generally? Length of exposure to the trauma in question. Think of it as the difference between being violently attacked on the street – Standard PTSD – and spending two years in an emotionally and physically abusive relationship with no way out as far as you can see – then you're talking _Complex_ -PTSD. Long term exposure to trauma or extreme stress, long term exposure to crisis conditions, clearly there's been some physical abuse, long term imprisonment – i.e. being kidnapped…" Doctor Drake pauses, "I'm not going to lie to you – it's going to be rough going from here on out – and a hell of a long road back, I can tell you that."

"But it's possible that he might… find his way back?" Liv asks hesitantly, having little to no frame of reference for-

_Long term exposure to trauma or extreme stress. Long term exposure to crisis conditions. Physical abuse. **Long term imprisonment.**_ Liv's gaze slides to Fitz without her permission, and she suddenly thinks _oh._ He must see it on her face, the exact moment that she lines up her limited pieces of multiple different puzzles and finds that they fit to make an entirely separate one altogether, because he immediately looks away, his muscles tensing automatically. His hand jerks in hers like he's planning to pull it away, but decides not to at the last second.

She looks away from him too, not wanting him to feel like she's staring a hole in the side of his head, and she sees Dr. Drake watching them both – but Fitz more specifically – carefully.

"It's possible." He says finally, "But I can tell you with absolute certainty that he won't ever be exactly like he was before this happened to him. The brain is an incredible machine with a near boundless capacity to heal the mind, but it's not capable of performing magic tricks. It will be a while before we know the extent of what he went through, and what short and long term effects those things are going to have on him, but given that he's experiencing such severe aphasia…" Carlisle trails off again, again weighing his words as best he can without cotton-wooling them, "To me, that indicates that he's right up there on the severe end of the scale with regards to his post traumatic stress."

"Will you stay?" Fitz asks him, an edge of desperation in his voice.

"Of course, Mr. President," Carlisle nods, "As long as I'm needed."


End file.
